Suspected Antwerp attacker ‘was arrested in the Netherlands’: AD

A man who is suspected of an attempted attack in Antwerp had been arrested in Rotterdam a week before, reports the AD.

Mohamed R, a 39-year old Frenchman of Tunisian origin, was arrested on Thursday after apparently trying to drive a car loaded with weapons through a crowd at high speed in the Belgian city.

The Dutch AD paper cites Belgian newspaper, Het Laatste Nieuws, which claims that Mohamed R. had been picked up by police three times in the last week, once ‘in the Netherlands’.

The AD claims that this was in Rotterdam, although a spokeswoman for the Rotterdam police said this is ‘currently under investigation’ and that a press release will be put out on Friday.

London

The man apparently tried to drive a car through a busy shopping street. Several pedestrians jumped aside and there were no injuries. The attempted assault came a day after a man named as Khalid Masood killed four people and injured 29 others in an attack in Westminster, London.

R had, says the AD, been arrested for unknown reasons in Rotterdam on Friday March 17, and then was ‘ordered to leave the Netherlands.’

The man is in custody, although since he was reportedly drunk and on drugs, his motivation has not been established.

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